


my heart in your hands

by Blue_Rive



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: (referring to carmilla and loreli), Angst, Billy Vangelis Was A Good Father, Dr Carmilla's B+ Parenting, Edit: my headcanons have changed a LOT since writing this so I no longer vibe, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Jonny Vangelis Was A Good Kid, Medical Malpractice, Minor Character Death, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Possessiveness, Temporary Character Death, Unhealthy Relationships, baby!jonny, but I don’t think they were objectively bad, but seeing them together is making me feel things, carmilla attempts to give jonny therapy and ends up monologing abt her ex, i attempt to red string all the lore together and convey it in fic format, or more accurately irritating teenager!jonny, references to The Bifrost Incident, she's trying her best..., so keeping this fic how it is, those tags are unrelated, went back to add some tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26208463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Rive/pseuds/Blue_Rive
Summary: How Jonny d'Ville's mechanization came about.
Relationships: Dr Carmilla & Jonny d'Ville, Dr Carmilla/Loreli (Dr. Carmilla)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 70





	my heart in your hands

**Author's Note:**

> day after posting- did a few minor edits, including adding a paragraph at the end of carmilla's first part

Jonny d’Ville stood over his father’s body, gun still cooling. He dropped his dad’s hand and took a step back, so shaky it was more of a fall that he only barely managed to stop. There would be someone coming looking soon enough, and he couldn’t be seen with the body. Bad enough he’d stood by him as he bled out and listened to his last words instead of just shooting him another time. He dropped his gun and ran. 

Didn’t know what he wanted to do next. Go and drink his sorrows away, except Jack’s was the only half-decent bar in town and he wasn’t going back there if he could help it. Always could steal a horse or a spaceship. Get off this godforsaken planet. He couldn’t go home- his ma would be back from work and asking questions and _oh god, his ma._ Shit. What was she going to think? 

He was running away, not really looking where he was going, and tripped over a rock, sending up a cloud of dust that left him coughing, sprawled out on the road. “Ow. Fuckin’-” 

“Need some help?” an amused voice asked. He didn’t recognize her from her voice, which was weird enough in a town as small as this one, but to add to that her accent sounded like it was from another planet- maybe New Japan? She offered a hand to him, and he grabbed on and pulled himself up. He could see her better now; she was a woman with dyed hair, a cane, and a long coat, looking incredibly out of place in the middle of New Texas. If you lived here and you _didn’t_ have all-beige clothes and hair, the dust and the sun would take care of that for you. 

He let go of her hand and attempted to dust himself off. “Who the fuck are you?” 

“Carmilla,” she said. “ _Doctor_ Carmilla.” She looked him up and down. “You seem like a good kid.” 

Jonny flinched. When he’d first started going to the casino, his dad had sat him down, said “Listen, son, I know you think you can do whatever you like now, but be careful around Jack, yeah? I don’t want you going down the same road I did- you’re a good kid. Stay out of trouble and listen to your ma, alright?” 

“Yeah, sure,” he’d replied, only half paying attention. This talking-to felt about the same as the one he’d gotten when he’d learned to drive a car or started going out with Ez- a boring ten minutes about stuff he already knew, thank you very much. 

“I’m really not,” Jonny d’Ville told Carmilla. “Where are you going with this?” 

“I’ve been looking for someone to come and travel the universe with me,” she said, straight-up- no hidden smile or telltale signs of a lie, and she sure looked alien. She leaned forward to wipe some of the dust off his face, and he let her. “You look like you fit the bill. Shame about your father, but you’ll probably be wanting a getaway now.” 

“Yeah, getting off this planet seems like a real good idea,” Jonny admitted.

She clapped her hands. “Perfect! Maybe you’ll last longer than the others.” 

“I- what?” 

“Any last business? We probably won’t be coming back.” 

“Uh-” Jonny shook his head to clear it. He still had blood on his hands. “Yeah, actually, I should probably leave a note for my ma, and a couple of my friends- actually, can you get me a can of kerosene? And a better gun?”

\---

It was only when they got in her ship that Jonny processed what had just happened. Killed his dad, met an alien, killed Jack, burned down the casino, left home with a total stranger, and now he was going to go to _space._ He didn’t even know her _last name._

The doctor was going around getting the ship started. At first he’d been excited to see how it worked, but it turned out to be just a lot of math, which was boring as hell to watch, so he started exploring the ship to take his mind off things. The problem was that it was a _really small_ ship. There was the bridge with all the controls and stuff where the doc was, and then a tiny bedroom of the type where there wasn’t really a _floor,_ you just kind of crawled onto the bed and you had to keep all your stuff in the ceiling, and then this detachable engine room thing except the doc had stuck a couch and table and stuff in there and called it the commons.

He ended up sprawled on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. 

He could have left the casino alone. It had seemed like a good narrative climax to set it alight. All the romance novels he liked ended in fire and brimstone and death. It was his way to make a mark on the world, to go out burning. 

There had been people in there. The older guy who taught him how to cheat at cards and his ma’s friend who used to take care of him and his siblings when she was at work, and his friend’s older brother, and _oh god, New Texas was dry as fuck and buildings catch._

Just a couple more deaths to add to his conscience. 

The ship started to rumble, engine heating up. Jonny yelped and tried to run to the bridge, but only got halfway there before the acceleration threw him back. 

“Sorry, I forgot you’d never been in space before!” the doctor called. “Hang on to something!”

Jonny scrabbled about on the floor as he slid backward and ended up grabbing onto a table leg. “Do you do this all the time?” He had to yell to be heard over the engine. 

“No, normally I have a better ship! Your government is really shoddy when it comes to space travel!” The ship started rattling, and he could feel the floor heat up under him. “We’re just getting out from the planet- it should be alright now!” 

True to her word, the ship eventually stabilized a bit, and the engine’s roar changed into a quiet hum. “There we are,” she said, taking her hands off the controls and stretching. “Look out the window.” 

Jonny tugged himself over to it. They’d actually gone really fast, looked like- he could see New Texas off in the distance, and they were passing one of the moons now. 

Why did he care about what had happened? The doctor had told him they were never going back. With a ship, he could probably do whatever he wanted, to whatever planets he chose, and they could leave before any repercussions. The people he’d killed were dead now- nothing he could do about that.

Burning the casino down would make a good story sometime, all things considered. 

\---

Carmilla had always loved space. There was something so freeing and beautiful about being so near the stars you could touch them, reach out and pluck them from the sky to tame and keep as your own. She looked out the window of the spaceport, taking a deep breath.

“Doc!” Jonny called from halfway across the room, pulling her out of her reverie. “Doc! Doc C!” 

“What is it? 

He took her hand without any reservations and tugged her over. “Look- they got stuff from ‘cross the _galaxy_ here, and this really cool jetpack thing, and all these guns and knives and stuff- I got one for you! It’s all fancy and elegant but also really good at stabbing and you can hide it an’ things. An’ then for myself I got a bunch of stuff but especially this gun that can shoot _plasma._ D’you want me to show you?” 

“Maybe don’t.” The spaceport was crowded and full of people from all over talking in a thousand different languages all trying to be louder than each other. There was no way you could fire a gun and not hit anyone- even if you did it straight up, there were flying species overhead. She was more amused than anything, though. Jonny had been closed-off and obstinate at first, but take a kid who’d only ever been to one small town in New Texas to space and he got all excited. 

A loud yell in a language Carmilla couldn’t speak yet sounded above the clamor. “I think he just noticed that his guns are gone,” Jonny said. “And his knives.” He raised an eyebrow at her, twirling one of his stolen weapons on the end of his finger for good measure.

“We should get out of here, then,” Carmilla said. “I’ve got the parts we need.” 

“Alright.” Jonny trailed along sulkily behind her like a duckling going through its edgy phase as she navigated through the crowd, apparently dissatisfied with her response to his attempts to impress her through petty theft. Her first few questions about his new gun are answered in one-word sentences, but then he spotted a bookstand selling romance novels and perked back up. She ended up having to drag him away, a stack of books clutched in his arms amidst all the various weaponry. 

“So what’s your favorite book?” Carmilla asked. Step #1 of parenting: Get to know your new stolen child and his literature tastes. 

Jonny scoffed. “Reading’s for nerds.”

She looked pointedly at his stack of books.

“Ugh, fine. I dunno if I have a _favorite_ , but there’s this one I read a while back called A Knight’s Honor, and it’s about this girl, right? Only she’s fallen in love with a princess, and she’s a commoner, so-” He kept talking as they wove their way through the market area, made their way onto the docks, and entered their small spaceship. (He stopped explaining when they reached it- finishing with “Shit I don’t have time ‘cause I went into too much detail, um the monarchy’s corrupt and she ends up going back to the rebel girl and they blow up the palace but before that they kiss and there’s this whole speech and then they die in the explosion okay I’m gonna go to the bridge and play with all these guns now thanks”)

The ship was really only a one-person thing, but it still felt incredibly empty with only her. Having Jonny on board was a lot nicer, even if space was sometimes tight. Sleeping in the commons because Jonny had decided to sprawl out on the bed and claim it for himself was infinitely preferable to sleeping in the commons because she couldn’t stand the loneliness of it all.

Carmilla didn’t like being alone. When she was afraid she had to talk to someone, when she was bored she’d drift about aimlessly if there was no one willing to engage with her, and more often than not silence sent her spiraling. Loreli leaving her had been hard. Her mortal companions dying had been hard. If she had it her way, Jonny d’Ville wouldn’t be like the rest, their light small and flickering and eventually burning down to a last spark snuffed out with the stopping of their heart. She didn’t want to be abandoned again.

\---

Couple days after they got back from the spaceport, when they’d been traveling with each other for about a week, the doctor approached him. Said she wanted to talk, though about what he didn’t know, and now they were sitting next to each other on the engine room couch. 

“So,” the doctor began, “I have heard… communication is important, between a par- between _friends._ And it is also important after you go through a life-changing and/or traumatic experience.” She said ‘slash’ out loud, like she was quoting something she’d read a few times over. “I was waiting until we got to know each other a little better, but do you want to talk about what happened on New Texas?” 

“I thought I was signing on to hang out with a cool crime lesbian with a spaceship, not a shrink,” Jonny said irritably. “At least get me something stronger than tea if we’re going to talk about our feelings.”

“You’re not old enough to drink.” She took a prim sip of tea. Because of the lack of gravity, it was in one of those water bottles where you had to suck on the straw, but she managed to make it look good. “Besides, I don’t keep any alcohol on board. I got drunk once. It did not go well. I have now broken every law in thirty-four star systems.”

Jonny looked at her with a new kind of appreciation. Said look slid off his face as he processed the lack of whiskey. “None? That’s bullshit.” 

“I suppose you’ll just have to process your emotions sober.” The doctor looked amused. 

“Fuck off. What do you want from me, anyway? I killed my dad. Nothing more to say there.” 

“From what I understand, it wasn’t fully your decision. You’re quite young, and you were being manipulated.” 

“I’m old enough to make my own fucking choices,” Jonny snapped, same as he had when his dad had found out he’d been taking up jobs with Jack. “What’s the point of this?” 

“I want to- I want to do right by you, Jonny, and I’ve had my fair share of failures and… let’s say _complicated_ relationships.” 

“Fine. Tell me about one of them, then. I don’t want to be the only one interviewed here.” 

The doctor visibly sagged, tilting her head back over the armrest of the couch. “Alright. It’s only fair, I suppose.” Taking a breath, she continued “I was in love, once. Still am. This woman, Loreli… when she laughed, it was like sunlight breaking through the clouds, she carried such a wild exuberancy and happiness for everything around her. I have this very clear memory of it snowing one day, and her running outside in bare feet and trying to catch the flakes on her tongue. We’d known each other since we were children, used to be best friends, and getting married felt like the most natural thing in the world.”

“And then what happened?” Jonny pressed, leaning forward. This was keeping her distracted better than he could have hoped. He was a bit worried, too- from the sound of how she’d been going on about complicated relationships, this went south somehow. They’d been traveling together for a while now- if she had some tragedy in her past, he cared about it. 

She took another sip of her tea. It’s an oddly viscous liquid, and doesn’t seem very warm. Jonny remembered suddenly that they didn’t own a kettle. “She- Loreli- got sick. At that point, the world was crumbling down around us. Terra had been bombed. Nuclear strike on a massive scale. We’d been doing okay, because we’d stuck together. Loreli became an assassin for hire, treated it with the same amount of passion she did everything else. I was a musician, which paid… significantly less, so we mostly lived off her money and I spent most of my time looking for places we could go that had been hit less hard than where we lived. And then one day I found her burning up with fever. The medical institutions were still in disarray, with the capital doing nothing to help. I couldn’t let her die. So…” The doctor traced a hand over her own neck, rubbing circles into a small spot underneath her hair. “I made her a vampire, like I am. Immortal, unkillable- especially not by an illness.”

“That sounds terrible,” Jonny said without thinking. “I could never- being immortal’s terrifying. I’ve always wanted to die a heroic death, never to _not die._ An’ all your friends would be gone before you and you’d be left alone and then you’d entropy or something.” 

“All your friends would be gone before you.” She wiped a bit of blood off her mouth. “Exactly, my dear Jonny.” 

Off-kilter and unsettled, he hurried to fill the silence. “So, what happened with Loreli?” 

“Becoming a vampire meant she lost her morals. She became… cruel. I was still in love with her, and I think in her better moments she still cared for me. We’d spent so long together, she had to. But it became worse and worse- until eventually she got bored of me, and tossed me aside like a broken toy.” 

“I’m sorry,” Jonny said, at a loss for anything else. 

The doctor smiled. “Don’t worry. I won’t make that mistake again. There are plenty of other ways to make someone immortal.”

\---

It had taken her a few months, but Carmilla was starting to make headway on Jonny’s mechanization. The hard bit had been the immortality, of course. She’d tried and failed so many times on that part, with so many different people, but she thought she had it this time around. Before, she’d built off the technology of King Cole and the Olympians, but it looked like _true_ immortality could only be gained through some kind of eldritch component, so she’d had to call up an old friend. That was sorted now, though, and the main thing left was making the actual device. After some consideration, she’d settled on his heart. Other body parts could work as a mechanism, but the heart had several connections to the magic she was drawing on, as well as a replacement heart being fairly easy to create (as opposed to, say, an eye, or a brain.)

She was deep into planning, papers tacked up on the commons wall and ceiling and floor. _Maybe if I make this bit more of a revolving door-_

“Doc! What’cha working on?” Jonny ducked his head in through the door. He had somehow found a box of orange juice, as well as a three-foot long silly straw. (The zero gravity complicated drinking and eating quite a bit, so he’d started getting creative.) “Wow, it’s a mess in here.” 

“I’m doing maths,” Carmilla said. “What are you doing up? You’re supposed to be resting until your leg heals.”

“I got bored. And my leg’s fine!”

“You fell off a train.” 

“Okay, first off, incorrect. I was _pushed.”_

“That was your own fault for stealing that poor woman’s cat.” 

Jonny flopped back onto the couch, crossing his arms. “I still think we should get a ship’s cat. That entire heist was your fault for not just letting me adopt one.” He took a long, unnecessarily difficult, sip of orange juice. “We going to do anything interesting today?” 

“It’s still a few weeks before we reach a planet, we’re in deep space now,” Carmilla told him, starting to clear up her tools, “and you were supposed to spend the day in bed, so, no.” She noticed an unfinished table taped to the ceiling. “Hang on. Before I put all this away, let me measure your chest.” 

Jonny yelped and tried to run away, forgetting about both the zero gravity and his broken leg. He rotated slowly in the air where he’d fallen and glared up at her. “Why?” 

“Reasons,” Carmilla said, taking the measurement quickly and scribbling it down. 

Jonny brightened. “Are you gonna make me a dress?” 

“No. Do you want a dress?” 

“Yeah! You can fit so many knives in ‘em.” He spread his hands out wide. “ _So_ many. They’re great!”

Carmilla laughed- for the first time in a century, she realized. 

She couldn’t afford to mess this up. 

\---

Space was big. Turned out, a lot of exploring the galaxy was just floating around real bored in a tiny ship. One day, left to his own devices, Jonny got bored enough to go through the cupboards in the bridge. 

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to find, but it sure as fuck wasn’t a mechanical heart, laid out all neat and pretty and humming with a tune he could just barely hear. 

Something about it unsettled him. 

A brief, stunned, pause, then a mad scramble through the other drawers. He needed to find something to explain whatever the hell this was. 

In a ceiling drawer, near the back, he discovered a sheaf of notes in the doctor’s handwriting. Whether it was Low Terran or New Spanish didn’t matter usually, her handwriting was so messy, but he managed to find one sheet set out in bold typed New English. _Official Plans To Ensure The Immortality Of Subject #49 (Jonny “d’Ville” Vangelis)._

He read through it with a sickening sense of dread. It was all things he’d always suspected, but had elected to ignore. There were people before him, who had died. There were people before him, who the good doctor had killed. And she wanted to make him immortal- something so abhorrent it was one of his deepest fears. 

He needed to confront her on this. He had to stop it. 

Jonny found the doctor in the commons, sharpening her knives. He recognized the one she’d just started on as the knife he’d stolen from the guy at the spaceport ages ago- had to have been a year, at least. 

She looked up when he waved the papers in her face. “What the hell were you planning?”

“It’s not quite done,” the doctor said. “There are some updates I need to make- to ensure you stay with me, among other things-” 

“Stay- you mean against my will?” He backed up to the wall, started looking for exits. They were still a good week from the nearest planet. “That’s fucked up!”

She moved forward, took hold of his shoulder with one hand- a gesture she’d done a million times before. He tried to push her off, and her grip grew tighter.

“I’m not gonna let you do this. I don’t want to be immortal.” He grabbed at one of the knives on the table, stabbed it through her hand. She’d done it on purpose before to show that she regenerated, but it still made her startle in pain and let go. He dropped the knife and made a break for the airlock. 

She tugged his collar, pulled him back- onto the knife she’d been sharpening, that she still was holding. It stabbed through his heart. 

Jonny Vangelis died. 

### Notes:

Temporarily.

[]() []() []() [](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/show_comments?work_id=26208463)

Jonny looked so peaceful, when he was asleep. Carmilla pushed back a lock of hair from his forehead, tracing a finger gently around the side of his face. 

His eyes opened suddenly, and he floundered, finding himself restrained. “What’s going on- I died! I died, and now I’m not dead! Oh god- you- the heart- you _didn’t.”_

Carmilla pushed him back down gently. “It’s alright, 私の好きな人. Go back to sleep.” 

Jonny blinked several times, trying to fight off the anesthesia, but finding himself lying back down on the operating table, eventually gave in. 

Carmilla sighed, and went back to work.

**Author's Note:**

> this is the end for real! leave a comment/kudos if you liked!
> 
> 私の好きな人- literally 'my favorite person', also means 'my love'; in one of the doc c songs, carmilla uses it to refer to loreli. (it's a completely platonic usage here, but the parallels are 100% intentional)


End file.
